


we've seen those mountains kneeling

by Byacolate



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Canon Rewrite, F/F, Female Bilbo, Female Bilbo Baggins/Female Thorin Oakenshield, Female Thorin, Pining, Rule 63, actual consort bilbo baggins, of a fashion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let us go, though we know it’s a hopeless endeavor. The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've seen those mountains kneeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [underscoredom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/underscoredom/gifts).



> For [dom](http://andbravewarm.tumblr.com/) because why should I need a reason to give you things?

 

“She looks more like a grocer than a burglar.”

 

Bilbo’s patience reaches the end of its tether as the vagabond troupe of dwarves guffaw at the slight against her while the tall one circles her like a predator. As a middle-aged bachelorette, she is no stranger to shrewd assessment, and with her shoulders squared she plants both fists on her waist and replies tartly, “Perhaps that’s because I am not a burglar.”

 

The one called Thorin shares a look with Gandalf behind her and by the time she’s whirled around to see what the wizard is trying to convey, his face has evened out to an indulgent smile. It is perhaps most infuriating that whatever the look had been makes Thorin docile as a lamb as she turns to sit at Bilbo’s table.

 

And then somehow an hour passes, in which time Bilbo has missed dinner entirely and been roped into an adventure.

 

She supposes it is her mother to blame, and her father would think the same; Bilbo is restless and her Tookish blood is surely the cause. It only takes a wizard’s scorn to light a fire under her, after all, and all of the sudden she’s signing binding contracts to burgle when she’s never stolen a thing in her life.

 

Bungo would find it most vexing. Belladonna would be utterly delighted. Bilbo settles for feeling hungry and somewhat out.

 

* * *

 

There are trolls and wargs and orcs and and Bilbo has just about reached her limit with Thorin’s stormy mood. She is forever tromping about with a scowl on her face, flanked by her great bear of a dwarvish shadow with all of his tattoos and unnecessarily large axes. She has no patience or tact, and there is no gentleness about her. She forgoes comfort for herself and her company like she was born for it. She is tall and broad and fierce. She embodies everything a hobbit is not, and Bilbo is wildly awed by her.

 

Even when she all but spits at Gandalf’s feet when he brings them to the precipice over Rivendell.

 

Elrond’s kindness abounds and his hospitality is endless and Thorin acts as though she’s being tortured. She mopes and sulks and snaps and it’s all just silly, really. Bilbo takes to the elves like a fish to water; they dote upon her like she is a particularly wondrous child and not an entirely unremarkable spinster. They adorn her with flowers and pretty things that she enjoys in private and wears in the presence of leary dwarves if only to prove a point.

 

Thorin is positively thunderous every time Bilbo joins them at dinner with elven braids dripping with bluebells. Ori likes them well enough, and Dori is a soft-hearted old fusspot, so Bilbo keeps to their end of the table.

 

There is a room all her own where Bilbo is visited every evening by elf maids who marvel at her curls and draw her baths and feed her tiny, delicate sweets. Ori joins her there too, sometimes, tentative like he should not like to be in the presence of elves. Bofur too, but only once the elves have gone, and he always manages to draw her to the dwarven camp where she stays just until Thorin’s glowering is too off-putting to remain.

 

The dwarf king is a broad, dark presence in her doorway only once, just the night they sneak away. She waits for Bilbo to step aside before she enters the room, glancing around suspiciously as though Bilbo has an elf or two in hiding, waiting to pop out at Thorin in the dark. She rubs her eyes and sets the candle down on a table, awkwardly crossing her arms over her chest. The elven dressing gown is so thin and light, almost inappropriately so; the silken material runs over her body like water, every curve and contour on display, and she feels somewhat naked in so little standing before the fully-armored king.

 

“What are you doing here at this hour?” she whispers, and scrambles to clutch at the bundle of cloth - her traveling clothes - shoved into her arms.

 

“Get dressed,” Thorin hisses, “we’re leaving.”

 

“What? Now?”

 

The pointed look Thorin gives her in the meager firelight is enough. Bilbo’s eyebrows raise as the seconds tick by and Thorin stands there just inside the open door, staring at her.

 

“Well?”

 

“Well what?” Bilbo snaps, frazzled and tired and longing for the soft, warm bed behind her. “Surely you don’t intend for me to undress with you standing there.”

 

Thorin seems stricken by the very notion, and Bilbo tries to convince herself that doesn’t smart. The dwarf king turns on her heel and closes the door behind her when she goes.

 

But once Bilbo is packed and she joins Thorin just outside the room, she is given an appraising look. Bilbo opens her mouth to say something entirely impolite when Thorin stops her, pulling the hood of the cloak up over Bilbo’s head. “Oin believes it will rain,” she explains and adjusts a strap more securely over Bilbo’s shoulder before she’s off down the hall, Bilbo struggling to keep up and process her actions all at once.

 

 

* * *

 

Curled on her side, Bilbo clutches her cloak to her chest and contemplates something very foolish. A hot jolt of shame strikes her chest when Thorin’s words play over and over in her mind.

 

Yes, perhaps Bilbo has been lost since she left home. Perhaps she was not meant to climb mountains and fight trolls and seek dragons with a troupe of wayward dwarves, but she is here - upon Thorin’s request, no less! - and that was that.

 

And yet the wound of Thorin’s words is fresh and aching and like a child, Bilbo contemplates just ever so simply running away from the problem by... quite literally running away. It would be simple; she could stand, roll up her gear, tiptoe from the cave on clever feet, and make it back to Rivendell before dawn.

 

She sits upright and that’s as far as she gets before Thorin beside her rolls over and squints groggily up at her.

 

“Sleep, burglar,” she grunts, and Bilbo stares resolutely at her knees.

 

“I should say the same to you,” BIlbo mutters back, picking at the worn blanket. “You had less sleep than I this night.”

 

Thorin blinks blearily, her face slack and tired. Her voice is soft when she says, “You have a nasty habit of arguing at the most pointless times.”

 

“You-!” Bilbo starts, lowering her voice when she realizes she’s being far too noisy. Her eyes narrow and her whole body feels hot with anger. “ _You_ have a nasty habit of being wholly, outrageously impolite.”

 

It must not cut like Bilbo had hoped it would because Thorin’s eyes fall closed and she snorts. “Perhaps,” she offers, and Bilbo falls back onto her bedroll with a little huff. “And perhaps,” Thorin continues a moment later, more quietly than before, “I could learn to consider my words more carefully, should that benefit my company.”

 

“It should,” Bilbo agrees tartly. Thorin falls silent after that, but to Bilbo’s surprise, her heart is remarkably lighter.

 

And moments later when her sword glows blue and the floor caves in, Bilbo finds herself cushioned from the fall in the circle of a pair of heavily armoured arms.

 

 

* * *

 

Everything is a blur between the running and the tree climbing and the fiery pine cone barrage, but Bilbo finds herself quite out of her mind when she takes a running leap at the orc advancing on Thorin’s prone body. She half expects to bounce off of the giant monstrosity, but perhaps the element of surprise was working for her because she takes him to the ground.

 

She wields her sword with a ferocity she is wholly unfamiliar with and prowls before Thorin’s form, sword outstretched toward the advancing beast. It will end here, she is sure, but she will not let Thorin die before her.

 

And then in the blink of an eye, when all hope is lost and she's in the middle of making a rather ardent inner apology to her father, a great and terrible eagle falls from the sky and takes Thorin from her in its massive claws. The world lurches beneath her when she is taken too, and they are flown into the dawn. Bilbo knows for certain then that hobbits are as unsuited to flying as they are to adventures - perhaps moreso.

 

Once they light upon stone again, Bilbo cannot reach Thorin for the crowd of dwarves around her, but when the hushed silence falls and she hears her voice - “The halfling?” it murmurs - her heart nearly stops.

 

Thorin rises and stumbles toward her, a stormy look on her face, every word falling from her mouth a grim reminder that Bilbo is a burden, unwanted, entirely unremarkable.

 

And then Thorin is crushing Bilbo to her chest and breathing into her ear how very wrong she was. Bilbo quite mysteriously finds her own arms wrapped tightly around Thorin.

 

“I feared you were lost to us,” she sniffs, closing her eyes.Thorin smells of the eagles, and of blood. “And you call _me_ reckless.”

 

Thorin’s laugh makes her heart skitter and she presses her face into the king’s shoulder.

 

“You are all of that and more,” Thorin says. The pressure of her hand at the small of Bilbo’s back stays with her long after they’ve stopped touching.

 

* * *

 

If the elves infuriated Thorin, Beorn has her utterly apoplectic with rage. Bilbo doesn't dare hope it is on her account, that Thorin's face has reddened with envy - not for a hobbit lass on the wrong side of her prime, anyway. If a giant bear-man manhandled any other of the company in such a fashion she'd likely be just as upset. Ever the diplomat, Bilbo does not protest as firmly as Thorin when she is lifted onto Beorn's knee and fed enormous slices of bread dripping with honey. She has hungered for days, and she knows the dwarves have too, so she waves at the large table like she isn't sitting in a skin-changer's lap being hand-fed like a pet and raises an expectant eyebrow at her companions.

 

Thorin is speechless with fury, and her men glance between her and Bilbo as they creep almost imperceptibly toward the table overflowing with food. Finally, she gives them a terse nod of her head and they descend upon the food like ravenous beasts. Thorin, Bilbo notices, does not follow.

 

"Master Beorn," Balin suggests, appearing at Thorin's elbow, "if you would be so kind as to unhand our burglar."

 

He does not, for a time - not until long after Thorin has probably burst one blood vessel or two - not until Bilbo has eaten her fill and taps at his arm imploringly. She is quite done with being pushed and pulled like a ragdoll, thanking you kindly, but the company doesn’t seem to care one little bit. Bilbo is pulled from dwarf to dwarf like it’s a sort of game until she comes to rest snugly between Thorin and Fili.

 

They don’t allow her a moment’s reprieve after that. She is never left alone in Beorn’s company, never even given a chance _to_ be should she wish it; either Bombur or Gloin are sent to chaperone her when she bathes, Ori joins her on her garden strolls, Fili and Kili are never more than a stone’s throw away when she goes to visit the ponies, and her bedroll is stationed right beside Thorin’s at night.

 

It would be vexing if Thorin’s attention was unwanted, but as Bilbo is mortified to admit to herself, a tiny secret part of her quite enjoys it.

 

That isn’t to say that being monitored at all times isn’t irritating, but the little tremor that shivers up her spine every time Thorin casts her gaze upon Bilbo makes the irritation so much easier to endure.

 

It won’t be long until they’re rested up and gone, but Bilbo finds herself more than relieved at the respite they’ve received in Beorn’s safe haven. It has been months since she’s been able to eat her fill throughout the day, or sleep until her body is ready to wake. It has been even longer since she’s been on the receiving end of physical affection, and Bilbo finds herself surprised at how she must have longed for it in secret as Beorn’s gentle, monstrous hands bother her not one whit. His touch is like her father’s in its sweet and unsullied intent.

 

Whether it is the touch she longs for from who she wishes it from, it does not matter. She will take what she can get.

 

* * *

  
Thorin pulls Bilbo aside before the fire the night before they are set to leave. Her eyes are ever more fierce in the firelight - they are dark and weighty with thoughts Bilbo cannot fathom. Her eyes heat Bilbo to the guarded center of her ribs. She is saying something, though, and it flies straight over Bilbo's head. Flustered at her own preoccupation, she touches Thorin's wrist and asks sheepishly that she repeat herself.

 

 

Though the room is otherwise unoccupied, it is only as private as they allow themselves to pretend standing as they are in the center of Beorn's home. Nevertheless, Thorin does not repeat herself. Instead she takes Bilbo's hand inside her own and presses a hard, frustrated kiss to the heel of her palm.

 

"Please, do try to listen," she says, strangled.

 

Bilbo can make no promises when Thorin stares so.

 

* * *

 

_In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare._

_I’ve seen your bravery, and I will follow you there_

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Emily' by Joanna Newsom: _We’ve seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey / We thought our very hearts would up and melt away / from that snow in the nighttime, just going and going / And the stirring of wind chimes in the morning in the morning / Helps me find my way back in from the place where I have been._
> 
>  
> 
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://byacolate.tumblr.com/).


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